Deutsche Bank bars chat rooms

Deutsche Bank, Europe’s biggest investment bank by revenue, has barred multi-party chat rooms at its fixed-income and currency trading businesses, as regulators continued punishing banks for alleged rate-rigging.

The ban for employees working in fixed income took effect this week, Michael Golden, a London- based spokesman for the company said. Similar measures were taken in foreign exchange in February, he said.

Regulators are targeting traders’ electronic messages, using them as evidence of wrongdoing in their investigations into the manipulation of benchmark interest rates and foreign-exchange markets. UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, said last week that it is banning the use of multi-bank and social chat rooms at its investment-banking division.